Who Loves Who More? Post-ep 16 drabbles
by C.C. Baxter
Summary: A sneak peek into their lives shortly after or around episode 16. Just because I miss them.


1/

Without him knowing, she still has her first ever picture of him, made into pocket size and stored in her wallet. The photo taken from a CCTV with his face mostly obscured from view and with his hand touching his hat. She looked at it from time to time; she secretly treasured those early days when her whole body would experience a tingling electric shock at the mention of his name, the fantasies that she would meet him someday. Without knowing it then, that was when she first started falling for him. Or maybe, even through the dormant memories of the past, she sensed all along that he was her Jung Hoo and she was his Ji An.

She already knew what was about to happen. She would continue being worried sick about him, as she always was when he set out of the house with that glint in his eye and wearing black as he did this morning (somehow, even post-Healer, she noticed that he would always don a Healer-esque outift whenever he needed to use 'unconventional' methods to achieve his news scoop). Then she would feel frustrated at being at home, though they had both agreed that she should take a break for the time being. Then she would miss him and she would look over that photo of him in her wallet and lapse into a reverie. He would then come home from work, and she would look up and feel an unexpressable gratitude and joy - wow, this guy is really mine. And he would have a probing look in his eye when he would see her expression, smile that wide, crooked smile of his that he only saves for her and take her into his arms and she would finally feel peace sinking through her whole body.

* * *

2/

Min Jae didn't have to look up from her laptop to feel his presence already by her door, his tall frame leaning casually against it with his billion-watt reporter smile. It was a matter of seconds before he would start his teasing banter soon (she felt her face twitch into a smile as she thought that and knew that he would catch it); she continued scrolling mindlessly through the ABS homepage and she counted - one, two, three- the silence made her look up in spite of herself. Though a cheeky smile was playing at his lips, he continued looking intently at her.

"What now?" she asked him.

"Nothing. Just that after you've done something this cool you look even sexier than you did before. I didn't know that was possible." He grinned. He was referring to her broadcast outlining the murder of Park Bong Soo and the charges held against the Elder. The other news stations had only reported the Park Bong Soo case but the report on the Elder and his henchmen had gone amiss. Min Jae had "missed" the warning from her overseeing manager and managed to retrieve the police investigation reports, kudos to a certain detective Yoon.

Min Jae smiled, tossed her hair and turned towards him. "Kim Moon Ho. Though I hate to admit this, your broadcasts at Someday News...it made me feel like I wasn't doing so great of a job. That made me frustrated. I'm sure you know this aready, but I was always just a little bit competitive. I don't like it when somebody does better than me, you know."

Moon Ho laughed and held up two cups of coffee with a cocked eyebrow. She got up and took one that he held out with a familiarity that suggested that she was used to such visits recently. They went to the rooftop to drink their coffee.

Moon Ho looked at her solemnly. "To being brave," he said quietly, holding up his cup. Min Jae involuntarily took a step closer to him and their shoulders touched. "To being brave," Min Jae echoed in a low voice, as they looked out on the roaring city below.

They stood like that for a while, leaning against the railing in the afternoon light, and Min Jae fell into thought. Min Jae hated that, no matter what he did or did not do in regards to her, and no matter how much she wanted to hate him, she always fell hopelessly for that tall man with the charming (bordering on cheesy, as some TV-watchers might say) smile. When they used to date, his smooth lines and manners were a constant source of her giddiness and worry. "Are you a playboy?" she would ask. "Just how many girlfriends have you had in order to seduce people this way? What kind of guy flirts like this? You make me worried. You can't turn your charm on other girls, okay!" He would then put an arm around her, laugh and make a joke about how he shouldn't be depriving the public of his charm ("it makes news people don't want to hear easier to digest! It eases my conscience to know that people can enjoy watching the news this way."). She felt like a young girl with her high school crush everytime he looked and smiled at her in that way, and for someone who was so in control of other aspects of her life after so many difficult years, she hated it. She also knew that Moon Ho knew the power he had over her and enjoyed every single moment of it. She let out a small involuntary sigh.

As if he read her thoughts, Moon Ho turned from the view to look at her. "You know, what you used to say about how I could charm the socks off anyone...for the past few years I've been thinking to myself as well. When I'm not preoccupied with Jian, with Healer, those kids...I think, maybe I should go out there again. Turn my charm on again just to see how good of a reaction I get from the young pretty girls out there."

He paused and his eyes become more intent. "But... I keep finding myself only turning my charm on for you. I don't want to charm anyone else. The only person I want to knock off their feet... is you."

* * *

3/

Ahjumma looked over at Jung Hoo play-wrestling the box from Young Shin and tsk-ed out loud. They, along with Detective Yoon (who showed up out of the blue uninvited), were helping her move her things to her new place.

"Ya, love-birds, be careful of that box! My bamboo-wood kimbap roller is in there."

Though she would die before she admitted it, Min Ja always felt a twinge of something bittersweet twist in her heart whenever she would see the plain look of longing and love in Jung Hoo's eyes when he looked at Young Shin. She didn't know how Young Shin could act normally under the intensity of that kind of gaze; it was a gaze that even onlookers around the pair averted their eyes from. It was a gaze that said - I didn't know what I lived for on this earth before I met you. You're the only reason why I live now and I am happy now. I don't know what I'll do without you. Truth to be told she was worried sick about those pair of eyes. What if Chae Young Shin wasn't around anymore? What if something happened to her, or she suddently decided to leave him? She didn't know if Jung Hoo could take it, or even at least be able to revert back to the pre-Young Shin Healer of the take-out eating, leopard-hunting documentary watching days. She didn't know whether this ardent devotion was healthy for him. She watched as Young Shin smiled back up at him, pinching his cheeks, Bong Soo style. At least it was requited love.

She sighed. "I guess this must be the feeling a mother gets watching her son fall in love with a girl for the first time", she unknowingly thought aloud to herself. Yoon Dong Won happened to pass by with a box of her knitted socks and gasped. "Sunbae, did you really say that? Wow...that's a rare show of sentiment from you! I guess you did soften after all-" he was interrupted by getting smacked on the head by a feathery contraption that resembled a ?Red Indian headdress.

"Mind your own business, you rascal." she muttered, turning around and shuffling forwards to sort out the boxes already moved into the apartment. She squinted towards the open windows at the sunlight streaming in. She would have to get used to a lot more light in her home now, and, looking back at her friends bickering and laughing in the afternoon sun, it probably wasn't such a bad thing after all.

* * *

4/

The ending credits rolled as the music swelled up in emotion. They had finished watching Les Miserables, which was showing on TV on Saturday night. They were both sitting on the sofa and they were wrapped up in blankets, Young Shin leaning against Jung Hoo, who has his arms wrapped around her. Though they both loved the movie, there was a more pressing thought on their minds, and they looked at each other the same time.

"We just watched a movie on TV," she whispered.

"Mmhmm. And on a Saturday night too." he murmured into her ear.

"I bet loaaads of people all around the country watched it too. Families, maybe other couples, just like us."

"Mmhmm" he nodded absentmindedly into her cheek, his nose stroking her neck, his attention straying beyond their conversation.

"Jung hoo, Jung hoo-yah, listen!" She pulled away from him make him look properly into her eyes. He smiled, knowing what she wanted to say. He nodded, encouraging her to say what they both felt.

"We're normal. We're normal!" She launched at him in a bear hug.

He mock-sighed as he looked down at her, her face buried in blankets, then at the Han Dae Su, that horrible ahjusshi record that Young Shin kept listening to when she thought of her father. "Han Dae Su. Is listening to that hovel normal? Ai, we still have a long way to go."

Young Shin laughed when she heard him, mostly because he couldn't hide the fact that he was utterly happy from his voice and he knew it.


End file.
